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October 15, 2009

ULM history professor presents work at national conference

Roger Carpenter, assistant professor of history at the University of Louisiana at Monroe, presented a paper titled 鈥淪triving for Authenticity: 鈥楻eal鈥� Indians, Scalping, and The Last of the Mohicans鈥� at the American Society for Ethnohistory鈥檚 Annual Meeting, held from Sept. 30 - Oct. 4 in New Orleans.

Carpenter鈥檚 paper examined the 1936 film Last of the Mohicans and the effort made by the film鈥檚 producers to find 鈥渞eal Indians鈥� for the film, as well as to accurately portray 18th century North American warfare. His paper discussed how these efforts proved to be a problem for the film鈥檚 producers, as 鈥渟calping鈥� proved to be too difficult to portray.

Carpenter also chaired a session titled 鈥淚mages: Literary, Motion Picture, and 鈥楽cientific鈥� Perspectives on North American Indians,鈥� which examined native stereotypes in film, the tendency of European travel writers to refer to native leaders as 鈥渒ings鈥� and native authors in the 1890s critiquing US actions in Cuba and the Philippines.

The ASE was founded in 1954 to promote investigation of the Native Peoples of the Americas鈥� histories. This involves developing histories informed by ethnography, linguistics, archaeology and ecology.

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